QE. Deming, 


His Work 








Edwin Willard Deming 


Foreword by 
Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn 


Compiled by Therese O. Deming 
Edited by Henry Collins Walsh 





Epwin Witiarp Deminc 





Indian Mysticism 


Beginning with the pioneer brush of George Catlin in the 
wild west of the years 1832-40, America has produced a 
series of painters and sculptors who have been inspired by the 
romance, the daring, and the picturesque in Indian life. In 
this notable list are the names of Karl Bodmer, Seth East- 
man, Baldwin Mollhausen, Paul Kane, Rudolf Fredrich 
Kurz, Clark Wimar, and Edwin Willard Deming. Despite 
the encroachment of civilization, our Indians have been as 
tenacious of their rights, their customs, their ceremonials, 
and their dress, in war and peace, as all their great Mongoloid 
relatives across the Pacific. Through the courage, determi- 
nation and artistic skill of our artists much has been pre- 
served of the pre-Columbian history of America. It is fortu- 
nate in our practical, mechanical age that there survive such 
idealists, to whom artistic and realistic expression means far 
more than commercial or practical achievement. 


In the future, when the work of all these artists are im- 
partially evaluated, Edwin Willard Deming will be looked 
upon as having superior insight and as being a master in 
portraying Indian mysticism. In our many meetings and 
conversations I have always been impressed with his deep 
sympathy for the mystical and supernatural side of the 
Indian life and his admiration for the many fine character- 
istics of this great and fast vanishing race. Only through 
‘sympathy and insight can the artist portray more than a 
superficial aspect of his subject. Deming gives us far more 
than a model; he penetrates the deep reserve of Indian 
stoicism and finds there an underlying reverence and awe in 
the presence of the great founder of nature, and flashes of the 
underlying human spirit of sentiment and_ tenderness. 
Deming was predisposed to his subject, and unchecked by 
art conventions, without opportunity of finding in the Art 
Schools the necessary technique, he has developed his own 
technique, his own point of view, his own impressions. Thus 
he gives his subjects original treatment, both in the handling 


3 


‘ 


% 
of color and of light and shade and in the portrayal of the 
expressions of the deeper emotions which the Indian is 
habitually desirous of concealing. In the ceremonial visits, 
in the dances, in the funerals or mournings for the dead, we 
have more than mere photographic portrayals—we have a 
really penetrating vision of Indian life. 


This little volume contains a short sketch of Deming’s life, 
a list of his best known paintings, with photographs and 
annotations by his ever helpful and encouraging wife, and 
letters of appreciation from artists and historians and from 
the always appreciative Theodore Roosevelt. May this 
booklet go forth on its friendly mission, but may it not, fora 
moment, mark the cessation of Edwin Willard Deming’s 
creative work. 

Henry FarrFIELD OsBorn. 


New York, February 18, 1925. 








With many thanks and kind appre- 
ciation to all who have contributed to this 
little booklet. 


FeO, Deming,.1925 





Saganoe HCl 
LIEALIG 
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Murat Decoration 
Painted for Mrs. E. H. Harriman. 


My Dear Deminc: 

Saw your Harriman decoration at Macbeth’s. They area credit 
to you and to American art. 

You are getting so you can better express your very elusive 
material. 


Yours, 
FREDERIC REMINGTON. 


Ridgefield, Ct., February, 1gto. 





Murat Decoration 
Painted for Mrs. E. H. Harriman. 


‘unasny] ULIpPUy UvoaUTY sy Aq pauMO 


V1-dd-WO-3-C 





EDWIN WILLARD DEMING 
cA Sketch 


Edwin Willard Deming, the internationally known painter 
and sculptor of American Indian and Animal life, was born 
of pioneer stock in Ashland, Ohio, on the 26th of August, 
1860. His grandfather, as a boy, had traveled with his 
parents in overland wagons from Sandersfield, Massachu- 
setts. They were the pioneers of 1815 who settled on the 
western reserve, then a part of Connecticut and now Ohio. 


When Deming was six months old he also became a 
pioneer, as he was taken to Geneseo in western Illinois where 
his father and grandfather had entered a tract of land on 
what had been the Fox and Sac reservation; there, from 
early childhood, Deming associated with the Red people of 
the Winnebago tribe, and learned to love them as brothers. 
Deming’s parents had settled on a vast prairie land dotted 
with many swamps full of water fowl, streams full of fish, 
and a country full of game and fur bearing animals such as 
wolves, beaver, muskrat, lynx, mink, and other animals that 
the small boys used to trap and spear during the winter to 
make their pocket money. At twelve Deming shot a big 
grey wolf and proudly brought it home on his pony’s back 
to show his mother what a fine hunter he was. This living 
in the wilderness was a pleasure and not a hardship; in fact, 
he felt sorry for the boys who had to live in the small town 
that had sprung up five miles away. 


About a mile and a quarter from his home was the little 
school-house Deming and his brother attended for several 
years. They had to walk each morning and this was not 

9 


much fun when the thermometer was 40° below zero. Later, 
the two boys went to school in town. The teachers, at the 
little country school house, were usually soldiers just back 
from the war and of one of these the boys were especially 
fond because he had only one arm and could turn a hand 
spring. School Jasted from eight in the morning until four 
in the afternoon and then it was too dark to play; but 
Saturdays were days of joy. The skating was fine on the 
frozen rivers and sloughs, and the favorite sport was spearing 
muskrats through the ice and digging mink out of the 
banks. 


At this time of the year the Winnebago Indians came down 
from Wisconsin and camped along the different streams for 
the trapping and hunting, and the little red boys of this tribe 
were among the first playmates young Deming had. He 
would sit around the camp fires of these (even to this very 
small boy) most interesting people, listening to their stories 
and learning the customs of these friends. 


The low temperature made little difference to these pioneer 
boys of Deming’s day, as they were dressed in wolf and 
buffalo skin coats and they had learned what a severe master 
the “White Man of the North” was. They must keep their 
fingers from touching the frosted steel runners of their skates, 
or they would leave some skin on their skates and have 
mighty sore fingers. These boys knew they must take the 
horse’s bridle into the house and warm the bit before pressing 
it into the animal’s mouth to avoid his suffering agonies; in 
fact, pioneer boys of eight were as grown up and more inde- 
pendent than the sixteen or seventeen year old boys of to- 
day, and they had learned to do their share of the work. 


The house in which Deming lived was a frame structure on 
a hill with a hundred miles of prairie stretching to the north 


Io 


where the cold winds swept down upon it all winter. There 
were no furnaces in those days, the kitchen and living rooms 
were heated with stoves but the bed rooms were cold; the 
snow often formed drifts inside the windows and the bed- 
clothes were frozen stiff from the moisture of the boy’s 
breath. Children did no loitering about their dressing; it 
was a quick jump out of bed, into clothes, and down to the 
stove to get warm—still, in spite of the cold, everybody had 
a good time sleighing about to visit one another during the 
day, and in the evenings they sat around the warm fire 
reading, popping corn, or listening to the yarns of some 
returned soldier. On Sunday Deming’s father always turned 
the clock an hour ahead so everyone would be ready to leave 
on time for church in the village five miles away. The 
whole family knew this and didn’t worry as the time was 
slipping past the hour they should leave. 


On one side of the farm, along the river, was a stretch of 
timber; this was a part of the pasture and the cows browsed 
there all day. Just before night, Deming used to go after 
these cows and bring them home. One evening he could not 
find them and he wandered through the timber, calling, but 
it was getting dark and the boy was getting worried and very 
soon he was lost. His imagination was very vivid, and soon 
every squirrel’s nest and every dark shadow was a lynx and 
every clump of bushes hid one. Only a few days before, an 
old settler going home one night, found the door ajar and, 
entering his log cabin, was attacked by a lynx. This story 
was fresh in the small boy’s mind; he knew he was going to 
be attacked and he had no gun with which to protect himself. 
Soon he thought he heard footsteps following him, then he 
knew he heard padded feet coming closer and closer, and 
finally he was sure he heard the footsteps of a lynx on the dry 
leaves. He was so frightened he could not even climb a tree 
and was only waiting for the attack. The lynx came on with 


ep 


a rush and sprang at him. He could not help himself and 
then he realized, to his great joy, that it was his old dog who 
had missed him and come to hunt him up. The boy fell on 
his dog’s neck and hugged him, and soon the dog turned 
around and led his little master back home and out of any 
further danger from the unknown things that always lurk 
in the woods at night in the vivid imagination of all small 
boys. 


Deming, as a small_boy, loved to draw and model. He 
drew birds and animals on the blank sheets on the backs of 
letters, and when he decided to use color in his work he found 
house paints and made them serve his wants. The clay he 
dug out of the creek served as modeling clay, and he sculped 
the animals and birds in this medium. 


The first pay he received for his art was when, as a little 
youngster, he received five dollars for painting a spread eagle 
on a piece of tin for a neighbor’s barn. About forty years 
later, when Deming revisited the old place, the farmer, still 
proud of the eagle on his barn, wanted to know if he would 
freshen up this first commission of the boy, which, needless 
to say, the now well-known artist did with great pleasure. 


When the honk of the wild geese going north told these 
prairie boys that the winter had broken, and the sap began 
to flow in the maple trees, trapping stopped; the fur of the 
animals was no longer valuable, and the muzzle loading shot 
guns were taken out and cleaned. Kegs of powder and bags 
of shot were brought out to the farm and the spring season 
opened up for wild fowl hunting. The birds came in count- 
less numbers—swan, geese and ducks filled the swamps, and 
immense flocks of wild pigeons almost darkened the sky. 
At night, the noise of their wings and the squawking sounded 
like a heavy wind. At this time the boys spent a month in 


1p) 


their canoes, blinds and in other ways, shooting wild fowl 
for market, and thus earning some more spending money 
for the summer’s needs and pleasures. 


This was fun, but the sun soon drove the frost out of the 
ground and then came the days of hard work. The plowing 
days had arrived and the virgin soil had to be broken up. 
The farmers would hitch up five or six span of oxen or horses 
to drag the breaking plows. In the prairie country there was 
not the tedious work of clearing the timber and ridding the 
land of stone that Deming’s fore-fathers had in New England. 
After the plowing came the planting and cultivating, and the 
boy of ten or twelve had to do a man’s work. Then came 
the cutting of the wild prairie grass; the boys often had to 
drive the young prairie chickens away from the front of the 
sickle to avoid killing them; later in the fall, these birds that 
had hatched and grown up on the prairie and in the swamps 
would be full-fledged and strong of wing, then every farmer 
boy would be at his game of hunting again and the cracking 
of guns would be heard in all directions. 


After the planting and cultivating, there were always a 
few weeks when the work was not so heavy and the boys 
took their canoes, camping-kits, guns, fishing tackle and 
plenty to eat, dumped all into a farm wagon and drove off to 
the splendid camping ground on Rock River where two 
weeks’ vacation was spent in having a wonderful time. These 
boys really enjoyed their good times, for good times were so 
rare and scattered through the years of struggling to make 
an existence in this pioneer colony that each moment of 
pleasure was eagerly looked forward to and enjoyed to the 
limit. This Rock River camp was the old burying ground 
of the Fox and Sac Indians, and Deming found many an- 
cient stone implements and utensils at this interesting 
place. 


13 


The October frost dropped the leaves from the trees and 
nuts were gathered for the winter, the far-reaching corn 
fields were turned to brown and, before daylight every morn- 
ing, the rumbling of wagons over frozen ground could be 
heard as the farmer and his boys drove out to pick the great 
fields of corn. As the sun rose over the horizon, flocks of 
duck could be seen flying over and lighting. In the back of 
his wagon every boy carried his muzzle loader, and often, 
without leaving the wagon, he would drop ducks from a 
passing flock. 


Deming’s father had many head of cattle and, to keep them 
from wandering over the vast prairies, he had built the first 
fence in that section, enclosing a pasture field of one hundred 
and sixty acres. 


The greatest menace of the fall was the awful prairie fires, 
and the small boys were instructed by their fathers to keep a 
constant watch; the eyes of the older people were always 
scanning the horizon for the least sign of smoke or fire. If 
the tall, dry fall grass caught fire it swept over the prairie 
like a race horse, killing and burning everything in its path. 
Deming helped in beating out many of these prairie fires to 
save his home from ruin. As a safeguard he helped his 
father plow furrows and burn strips of prairie around the 
fields, house, stables and pastures. 


The year was divided into four very important periods, 
but not asitisin the city boy’s calender. First came Thanks- 
giving Day, the principal holiday of the descendants of the 
New England Puritans and it was marked by the gathering 
of all the relatives at the home of the grandparents where, 
for weeks in advance, the grandmother had been busily pre- 
paring for the great day by baking mince and pumpkin pies, 
breaking into her store of preserves made of the wild fruits 
and berries that grew in abundance on the prairies. By 
Thanksgiving day the heavy work of the harvesting was 
done, the bob sleds would be filled with straw and old and 
young piled into this conveyance. Then they tucked them- 
selves in with warm buffalo robes and with a merry jingle 


14 


of sleigh bells, started off for a holiday of good will and feast- 
ing on what the good old grandmother had prepared, to- 
gether with the wild turkey and other spoils of the wilderness, 
supplied for the feast by the good old grandfather. Next 
came Christmas, the day of presents. In those days the 
small boys were happy to receive the simple, but to them, 
wonderful home-made gifts the father and grandfather had 
prepared and worked out for them. Good will and kind 
thoughts spelled Santa Claus in those days and the presents 
were all handmade or useful gifts. The celebrated Christmas 
dinner dish was chicken pie baked in huge dish pans, and 
dried and preserved wild fruits took the place of the cider 
and apples that came later. 


New Year’s day arrived almost before the small boy’s 
stomach had recuperated from his attack on the Christmas 
goodies and was another great feast day. Feast days were 
especial points on the calendars in these primitive, pioneer 
days. 


The fourth period was the Fourth of July, a long stretch 
away, with the hard cold winter to battle between times and 
duly celebrated with noises of all kinds. The circus, in those 
days, came around at this time or, perhaps, a little later in 
the season. It was a one ring affair and used to travel through 
the country during the night. The Deming boys were 
fortunate for they lived on the main traveled road and, of 
course, the circus went right past their house. In the morn- 
ing, at daylight, the boys were up to see the tracks of the 
circus wagons, elephants and camels in the dirt and excite- 
ment ran high. The fences had been full of pictures an- 
nouncing the arrival of this wonderful and eagerly looked for 
event for some time and, naturally, the whole day was spent 
in town. Some of the precious money was taken from the 
funds the boys had saved up, but those who had not been 
lucky enough to earn anything, carried water for the tent 
men and so earned a ticket for the show. There the boys saw 
great bareback riding, men and horses doing stunts and 
many performing animals. After the show was over, more 
of the capital was used, for there was the after show, the sid 


Ts 


shows, and, of course, the circus would not be complete with- 
out the pink lemonade and popcorn. Later on, when the 
circus boasted of a two ring show, the boys felt they had been 
cheated, for no one could watch more than one ring at a 
time. The joy and excitement of the circus did not die down 
with the day, for all the stunts had to be tried out and many 
were the tumbles brought about by the slippery backs of the 
horses at home when the boys tried to imitate the bareback 
stunts. 

At about this time of the year, Deming’s grandfather would 
return from his annual trip to Ohio and he always brought 
back a pair of red-topped, copper-toed boots and a Barlow 
pocket knife for each of his little grandsons. These gifts 
were the envy of all the other boys around them, and the 
first thing to do was to don the boots and run for the first 
water hole to see if they were water tight. 

Deming’s exploring trips had been confined to the radius of 
a few miles, often riding to find stray cattle or horses, but he 
always had a great desire to see beyond the great purple 
hills that shut him off from some wonderful and mysterious 
country beyond. He nursed this wanderlust with all sorts of 
stories and strange ideas about the unknown country and 
fanned into flame a great desire to see into that mysterious 
land beyond his ken. From his camp on Rock River, he 
could often hear the deep toned whistle of the Mississippi 
River boats. They always seemed to call to this small boy of 
much imagination. Nothing seemed to satisfy him until one 
day, after long saving and planning for the great event, he 
found himself standing on the hurricane deck of the old 
stern wheeler, Josephine, of the Diamond Joe Line, watching 
the swirling of the rapids as she pulled up stream on the 
“Father of Waters: 


The Diamond Joe Line was a freight as well as a passenger 
line and on each side she pushed a barge. This was in ac- 
cordance with what he had read in Mark Twain’s new book; 
the loading and unloading was done by negro roustabouts, 
many of the older ones had been brought over as slaves. 


16 


Between landings all of them would gather on one of the 
barges and sing old African and plantation songs, most of 
them in deep bass voices, while a few sang in the high 
falsetto, and to this day Deming has never forgotten the 
thrill of that music. 


As the boat landed, the gang plank was run out and these 
negroes, going single file, carried the cargo on their heads to 
the dock. One of the old men extemporized a song, and every 
negro kept perfect time with his body as well as with his 
voice. This was shortly after Mark Twain had written his 
“Life on the Mississippi,” and everything was still as he had 
recorded it: the old Southern planters, the gamblers, and the 
mate whose profane vocabulary has become classic. 


Four days up the river and three days coming back com- 
pleted this new and most interesting experience, but only 
whetted Deming’s appetite for more adventure into the 
unknown and mysterious country and he went back home, 
not a satisfied boy, but one only looking forward to working 
hard and earning enough to go again and, this time, further 
to the west. 


Soon after this, Deming had a chance to go down into 
what was then Indian Territory. It did not take him long 
to accept this opportunity and after a trip on the railroad 
and then in an old stage coach, he found himself among the 
Ponca Indians where he spent some time living with the 
Poncas, Osages, Otoes, Pawnees and other tribes. Here 
he made many sketches and studies at a time when the 
Pawnees lived in their earth lodges and many other tribes in 
buffalo skin tipes, long since a thing of the past. After 
spending some time among these red people and studying 
their language, Deming had to return but he had positively 
made up his mind that his object in life was to record the old 
time life and customs of the Indian and that his profession 
would be that of an artist. 


Upon the boy’s return home in the fall of 1880 his father 
told him they had decided that he was to take a course in 
business law. He and his brother were sent to Chicago to 


17 


study and Deming spent a very miserable three months try- 
ing to become a lawyer, but the result was a decision to give 
this up and study art, in spite of every obstacle. Therefore 
in the fall of 1883, after selling a number of his Indian ponies, 
he came to New York and spent the winter studying at the 
Art Students’ League. In the fall of 1884, having raised 
the funds for tuition and traveling expenses, he went to Paris 
and studied at Julien’s academy under Boulenger and Le- 
Febvre and took a course of lectures at the Beaux Arts. 
In the fall of 1885, Deming returned to America and shortly 
afterward was engaged in helping to paint the cycloramas 
that were so popular in various parts of the United States 
at that time. 


In 1887, he went among the Yuma Apaches and Pueblos 
of the Southwest and the Umitillas in Oregon. The summer 
of 89 he spent with the Crows living on the Little Big Horn, 
and in the fall of the same year and 1n ’go0 he was with the 
Sioux. At the “Ghost Dance Outbreak” at Standing Rock, 
when Sitting Bull was killed, Deming was living with them 
and made paintings and photographs of Chief Gaul, Rain- 
in-the-Face, and others, and also of the ceremonies and war 
dances they were engaged in. 


The year of ’91 was spent in New York working up and 
painting the studies he had made on his various trips, and 
in the year ’92 he married and took his young bride out for a 
year’s trip to record the customs and folklore of the Puebloes, 
Navajo and Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona. Seven 
months of the year of 93 were passed in old Mexico to 
record the life of the Mexican Indians and then he went to 
Yucatan where he made studies and photographs. 


Since then he has spent much time among the various 
tribes of northern Indians both in the United States and 
Canada, and in ’98 a summer with the Pegans added much 
to his knowledge in a record he made of the Sun Dance given 
by Running Crane’s wife as a thanksgiving offering for 
Running Crane’s recovery from a severe illness during the - 
winter. That summer he was adopted into the Blackfoot 


18 


tribe by White Calf, an old chief, and in 1914 Deming took 
his whole family among these people and introduced them 
to the life and people that he loved. The Indians adopted 
the whole family to show the artist their appreciation of his 
kindness to them and their love for him who was, to use their 
own words, “making a record so their children and grand- 
children could see how their fathers lived.” 


Mr. Deming spent much of the time between 1898 and I914 
studying the various Eastern tribes of Indians, but in 1917 
the World War broke out and he moved to Washington where 
he instructed the 4oth engineers in marksmanship; ‘and in 
1918 was commissioned Captain in the National Army and 
sent to Camp Perry, Ohio, to take charge of camouflage and 
to give special target instruction. When the school was 
transferred to Camp Benning, Georgia, Captain Deming went 
with it and while there painted the designated targets that 
have been lithographed and now are used in all Army and 
National Guard schools in the United States where shooting 
is taught. Later, he was transferred to the Springfield Armory 
where he introduced a new stock for the Army rifle. 


After resigning from the army, Mr. Deming spent seven 
months in South America in exploration work, and visited 
the Motolone Indians, a tribe of little people in the U. S. of 
Colombia, known to be cannibals. 


Since his return to New York Mr. Deming has continued 
his work of recording the old time American Indian, carrying 
out the idea of his childhood days when he played with the 
little Winnebagoes. 


19 





THe Goop Luck ARROW 


Owned by John Berwind 


20 


To E. W. Deming: 


_ The enclosed lines, a tribute to the charm of your picture of like 
title. The reproduction in the international Studio gave me a 
good idea of its potential beauties. 


ALFRED L. DonaLpson. 


Saranac Lake, Franklin County, N. Y. 


“THE GOOD LUCK ARROW” 


1 
A lonely brave of lithe and tapering length, 
Looms from the evening folds of damask light— 
A copper-colored cameo of strength, 
Carved on a dusky panel of the night. 


oh 
He stands at gaze on lone Kiwassa’s shores, 
Whose waters at his feet faint plashments make, 
While from the sky, veiled in fine films of gauze, 
A slumbrous sheen falls on the purple lake. 


The hunter’s eye is on the misty moon 
That silvers slowly in a cloud-spun weft. 
He turns not at the wailing of a loon, 
Nor heeds the track a ten-tined buck has left. 


4. 
But soon he fits an arrow to his bow, 
And bends it double with a grip of steel, 
Then, aiming at the silver-tangled glow, 
He sends aloft his missile of appeal. 


ie 
So speeds the “Good Luck Arrow” thru the air, 
An offering to the goddess of the chase— 
The feathered utterance of a fervid prayer, 
The childish ritual of a childish race. 


And do we smile in pity at this deed 
Devoutly done to win Diana’s boon? 
First let us ask if arrows from our creed 
Are never aimed at some far-phantomed moon? 


AtFrRepD L. DonaLpson. 
QI 


EXPLANATION OF PICTURES 


Very little is known by the layman of the primitive Redman’s 
religion and folklore. It attracted less attention than his warfare 
but war was carried on to preserve the life of the warrior and his 
family and to save his home, his hunting grounds and his customs 
that are now forgotten even by the Indians themselves. 


Everything the Indian did was preceded by prayer, an appeal 
to his Supreme Being, the Great Mystery, or one of his helpers, 
the sun, moon, stars and earth, for success and strength. Deming 
has witnessed them go through many of their rites and when he 
last visited the Blackfoot Indians in Montana, Medicine Owl, Big 
Moon, Four Bears and Whitegrass made a prayer to the sun, 
asking that Eight Bears, (Deming) and his family be protected 
against all evil spirits while he was on their reservation where he 
went to paint and to make moving pictures of their old ceremonies 
and a record of their sign language. 


There is so much that is not known about our old time Indians, 
it would take more than one life time to make a complete 
record of their primitive life, but Deming has spent much of his 
life living with them and studying their interesting rites, customs 
and folklore and it is these pictures he hopes to see placed in a 
public gallery where they will help educate the people and show 
the new Americans what the old Americans, our first people, really 
were. While the pictures were hanging in the National Gallery 
in Washington, a group of old time Indians paid a visit to the 
Smithsonian Institute. The director took them in to see Deming’s 
pictures and then they went all over the building to see the rest of 
the exhibits. 


After they were through, they asked to see Deming’s pictures 
again. They looked at them a long time, silent, except for an 
occasional word to one another and finally the old chief turned to 
the director and said, ‘““That man, he paint.” They could not 
have better expressed their appreciation of the pictures. They 
recognized their warfare, their sacred religious rites, their folklore, 
and their domestic life in picture. 


The Indian’s prayers to the Great Mystery had to be within 
himself; he went off, alone, where he could commune in solitude, 
perhaps on a mountain top during a storm, to make an appeal for 
strength to overcome trouble as in the “Prayer to the Great 
Mystery” (page 24). In the “Prayer to the Manes of the Dead” 
(page 28) the Indians are making offerings to the spirit of the bear, 
apologizing for having killed him, but explaining the necessity of 
food and clothing. The animal people are the Indian’s brothers 
and he never kills them except for needful purposes. O-E-OM- 
BE-LA, the vision, (page 8) tells the story of an Indian who has 
reached manhood and gone off by himself to fast from four to eight 


DADE 


days and commune with the Great Mystery. During this fast, he 
hopes the underground and underwater people (spirits of departed 
animals) will help him. Each animal, the Indians believe, has 
his own attributes and the one coming to the supplicant for help 
first, will give him whatever power it possesses. That animal will 
be the man’s totem through life. The “Grass Dance” (page 26) 
was an appeal for success before the Sioux went on the warpath 
and was danced in Running Antelope’s camp just before Sitting 
Bull, the Sioux medicine man, was killed. One of Mrs. Harriman’s 
panels (page 7) is an old warrior haranguing a group of braves 
before starting on the war-path. In Mrs. Harriman’s murals, 
Deming has taken the country adjacent to her home as a back- 
ground and introduced the native tribes and their life. 


On the “return of a successful war party,” the warriors put on 
their war dress and ride through the camp, singing their war songs. 
(page 36). The “Vow of Vengeance” is portrayed by a woman, 
whose brave has been killed, vowing over his dead body to avenge 
his death. These women go on the war-path alone and, in most 
cases, have neither fear nor mercy. (page 30) 


The Indian mythology equals the myths of the Greeks. ““The 
Indian Orpheus” on page 32 represents Manabozho playing his 
flute and calling the animals, who teach him their language and 
the secrets of the woods. This is also the story in sculpture, in 
the photograph on page 44. The “Spirit of Famine,” perhaps one 
of the most weird pictures in the folklore series is an old witch 
with her pack of phantom wolves. The raven is the messenger 
of starvation and is followed by an old witch with her pack of 
wolves. They gradually overrun the country until they devastate 
it and the Indians suffer famine. (page 40) 


One of the best pictures in Deming’s collection is the “Passing 
of the Buffalo” painted at the suggestion of Mr. E. H. Harriman. 
It tells of the immense herds of buffalo coming from every canyon 
and passing on, into the land of the setting sun. 


The “Mourning Brave” (page 42) depicts the sorrow and love 
of a brave, mourning his helpmate, making a silent appeal over 
her dead body for strength to bear his loss and asking The Great 
Mystery to help her over the path that leads to the Happy Western 
land beyond the Great Waters. 


23 





PRAYER TO THE GREAT MyYSsTERY 


24 


New York, February 27 1925. 

One of the most agreeable evenings in America was spent with 

Edwin Willard Deming. His historical knowledge of the Indian, 

based on personal experience of many years—his sympathetic 

appreciation of this noble race, filled me with regret that I too 
could not have shared in such vivid and poetic emotions. 

ZULOAGA, 


MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
Heye Foundation 
Broadway at 155th Street, New York. 


To interpret the Indian, whether scientifically or aesthetically, 
one must kwow him. It is not sufficient for the artist to regard 
him as a picturesque subject, for if he would put on canvas that 
which is found beneath the Indian’s skin, and especially if he would 
read him as a highly spiritual and imaginative soul, he must gain 
that intimacy which only long and sympathetic contact can bring. 

Edward Willard Deming knows his Indians, whether of the 
northern plains or of the semi-arid Southwest. He knows their 
souls and thus has been able to preserve in colors much of what 
they thought but did not often tell—and this at a time before they 
were despoiled of their heritage. 

F. W. Hopce. 
March 2, 1925. 


Letter from Fredrick Remington 
Lurot Prace, Ridgefield Connecticut. 
My Dear Deming:— 

I have built the place up here and it has cost me a lot of money, 
so much that I can’t do any thing for some time to come but my 
plan is to panel the dining room if they come my way, and when 
I do I will get you to help out with a panel or two. 

You ought to get a lot of work along that line—it is a thing 
which is much in demand and your stuff and treatment lends itself 
so to it. 

I haven’t a bit of that decorative feeling and must go on doing 
easle pictures in competition with the old masters (faked) and 
some of the early molasses boys and the late Dutch to whom out of 
doors looks like a full cream cheese. 

Yours, 
FREDRICK REMINGTON. 


Wednesday. 
25 


‘ALE WY ep uoyy 





"AONV(] SSVU5) 


aH 


Letter from an Omaha Indian. 


SMITHSONIAN InstiITUTE, Wash. D. C. 
‘Jans 20;"to92a, 


My Dear Deming:— 


There was never a time when I visited your studio and examined 
your Indian pictures that I did not come away with a sense of 
pleasure and satisfaction, for they always carried me back to the 
days of my boyhood when I witnessed scenes such as you portray. 


The one, I think a panel, showing the moving of a tribe over the 
prairies is full of action and is true to nature in every detail. In it 
there is nothing in action or apparel, that is incongruous or out of 
place, as is often the case in many of the Indian pictures we see. 
One can read in all of the paintings you have shown me, the 
sympathy of the artist with his subjects and an endeavor to be 
faithful to his art. 


The painting that you showed me of a band of mounted Indians 
charging over the prairies, took me back to the summer day when 
the Omaha, Pawnee and Ponca hunters charged upon a great 
herd of buffalo at the head of the Plum Creek, a tributary of the 
Platte. I, as a fun loving boy, was in the midst of that exciting 
chase and saw it all. It was a picture that quickly passed but 
was not easily forgotten. 


You are doing good work. Like the passing of the great buffalo 
herds, the “wild” life of the Indian is passing, and in a short time 
nothing will remain of it excepting in the pictures which you are 
doing. 

Your friend, 


Francis LAFLESCHE. 


dvaq HL 


dO SUNVJ\] FHL 


OL UAAVU 





28 


30 East 42nd Street, N. Y. C. 
March 8th, tg165. 


My Dear Mr. Deming:— 


Three cheers! I am just as pleased as possible about those two 
pictures. I congratulate the other party to the contract a good 
deal more than I congratulate you. I thank you for the two 
little books which I have just received and which I very much 
appreciate. 


Good Luck to you and yours! 
Sincerely yours, 


THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 


NationaL Museum, Washington, D.C. 


Dear Friend Deming, 


You don’t know how much I miss the noble line of pictures of 
yours that hung in the museum so long. I was used to go out and 
commune with the Indian Orpheus and the Bear Worshippers 
every once in a while and get spiritual food from others of your 
pictures that were always near me. 


I am very disconsolate that they are gone. I only hope that 
our galleries and collectors of pictures will have the vision to see 
that your pictures must constantly increase in value. Posterity 
will condemn them if they don’t collect when the collecting 1s 
practicable. 

With great regard, 


Yours 


Wa LterR Hovucu. 
March 3, 1924. 


29 


AONVAONAA JO MOA SH], 





30 


American Museum of Natural History, N. Y. C. 
March 6, 1921. 
My Dear Deminec: 


This note is to congratulate you on your good fortune, and wish 
you well upon your journey. I am sure that you will bring back a 
lot of new data and will add one more contribution to your long 
list of achievements. I am sure of this because you, above all, have 
been able to get inside the Indian life and to see the world as the 
Indians see it. This is no mean accomplishment, and is the basis of 

the appeal your work makes to all of us. 


And again, it is because you have this genius for penetrating into 
the inner life of the Indian, that your visit to the still wild natives 
of the Amazon country promises so much, and I doubt not that 
you will bring back to us our first glimpse of what is in their minds. 


Wishing you a pleasant and fruitful journey, I am 
Sincerely yours, 


CLarK WissLer, Pu.D., 
Curator of Dept. of Anthropology. 


Extract rrom ArTICLE BY Epwarp Hace BrusuH 


E. W. Deming is at home with either the modeler’s tools or the 
palette and brush and believes that, with such a wealth of native 
artistic material we possess in this country, there is little occasion 
to go abroad for subjects. In the Red Man’s folklore, in the tales of 
the war path and hunt he has heard in the tepees and at camp 
fires, he has found inspiration for paintings and sculpture. Typical 
of this is a series of library decorations he has recently executed 
portraying incidents in the life of Hiawatha. They are founded on 
the real traditions of the Red Man about the life and teachings of 
this personage, stories which the artist, himself, has heard the 
aborigines recite. In a painting entitled “Defiance” and in a 
series of panels portraying “Old Time Life on the Plains,” shown 
at a recent exhibition, the artist has made valuable contributions 
to the native history, customs and phases of life that are destined 
very soon to pass from the scene. 


yt! 


sas He 





INDIAN ORPHEUS 


32 


From The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, 
January, 1923. 


Tue Arr or Epwin Wittarp Deminc 
By Herbert B. Tschudy 


The American Indian is yet to become what might be called a 
fixed quantity, for he is open to exploitation in some manner—fair 
or otherwise—by the shrewder people of the wo1ld. Only within 
the last few months considerable interest has been aroused in the 
economic status of the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest, because of 
the brazen attempt to take from the Indians the little tillable land 
they have succeeded in retaining in the path of modern advance- 
ment. 


So completely has the Indian been surrounded by civilized con- 
ditions that it is to be wondered he has kept anything at all of his 
primitive life. However, as time goes on, in spite of this gradual 
loss of character we turn regularly to the Red Man and his country 
for artistic inspiration! 


One would naturally assume that of all the new things America 
had to offer the pioneer and the early American painter as well, the 
Indian would have commanded fitst attention; yet, upon reviewing 
our art productions of the half century preceding the last great 
move against the Indian in the eaily ’70s one finds little of interest 
except from the standpoint of its value as the earliest and, pre- 
sumably, most reliable, pictorial record of unchanged primitive life. 


The hordes of land-seekers that swarmed westward through 
Ohio and Indiana into the Mississippi Valley and over the great 
plains to the Rockies were relentless in their quest for wealth. In 
this great migratory force which overwhelmed the Indians, the 
softening, saving grace of the love of the picturesque and beautiful 
in nature, as is always the case, found little encouragement, for the 
battle against stubborn, primeval conditions made their vision of 
permanent habitation and its attendant refinements of dim outline 
at best! 


Riding high on the crest of this irresistible movement westward, 
there were a few who saw disappearing, steadily but inevitably, 
in its path a primitive, yet fascinating, culture; and among them 
was a boy, Edwin Willard Deming, the farm-boy of western Illinois. 
Going with his parents at an early age to a country still inhabited 
by Indians, Deming had his first contact with the life of these 
people at the very door of his home, and from the time of this 
mingling, as a lad, with the children of the Winnebagos, who came 
to this part of the old Sauk and Fox reservation to hunt and trap, to 
the present day he remains one of the few artists whose apprecia- 
tion of things Indian has the real foundation of personal, early-life 
association. 


33 


In his search for subjects for his pictures and statues, among 
which are some of the most genuine and beautiful contributions to 
American Art, his work as a student and portrayer of aboriginal 
American life has taken him into nearly all the chief latter-day 
Indian communities from Hudson Bay to Mexico. 


Many artists in the last half-century have found in the Indian 
an inspiring source of artistic expression—a number have come from 
foreign countries to try their hand in this alluring field—but few 
have more than skimmed the surface, either because of lack of 
ability to understand the real spirit of the Red Man, or, in some 
cases, because of a deficiency in that first hand knowledge which 
is procurable only at a cost of great patience and physical stamina. 


To-day the body of the Indian is brought close to us by railroad 
and automobile, but his spirit is all but gone and, while future 
artists will continue to find in the remnants of the race good 
material for the graphic arts, they will find it necessary more and 
more to rely upon the first-hand impressions of the pioneers in 
ethnologic research and upon such artists as Deming if they would 
give the basis of truth to their conceptions. Deming is the pioneer 
in every sense of the word to this generation of Indian painters; 
for so closely did he follow upon the trail of the Indian in his last 
stand against the United States Government that he shared with 
soldiers and Indians alike many exciting adventures and not always 
in the role of modest observer. 


Thus, in giving to the reader of the Museum Quarterly an esti- 
mate of the artistic value of Mr. Deming’s work, the writer lays 
great stress on this most important and valuable feature of the 
artist’s gift to posterity—namely, its sincerity. 


But Deming in seeking the truth became the poet. He saw 
deeper than the mere outward show of color and action, and set 
himself to put into graphic form the inner feelings of these people 
whose life was in its essence close-linked with the forces of nature. 


Deming’s early drawings were more illustrative than otherwise, 
but running through much of his earlier work was a promise of a 
more poetic vision which culminated in his fine decorative panels 
and in the pictures which depict Indian Mythology—a theme not 
likely to furnish inspiration to the realists of today. Here Deming 
has reached his highest point, whether expressed in subject- 
pictures, decorations or sculpture. 


The American Indian in real life is far from being the stern for- 
bidding creature so widely the popular idea /of his character: he is 
on the contrary imaginative, poetic at times, and always keenly 
humorous. 


Few of our artists have succeeded so completely detaching the 
Indian from modern life as has Deming in the pictures and small 


34 


bronzes shown in the Museum. The pioneer settler, the army man, 
or even the ethnologist, does not appear here to disturb the life of 
these people of the wild, so well has the artist kept his cherished 
subjects free from entanglements. 


We have established in the Southwest a colony of artists and 
authors who are making the Indian the subject of their several 
means of expression, but one is tempted to think, when viewing 
their work of art or reading their books, that they have arrived 
on the scene too late to get much that is primeval. All Indian 
tribes have absorbed much from the white race, and all have 
practised tribal exchange of ideas and things, consequently even 
the highly trained scientist finds it hard to trace to its source a 
cultural expression in which he is interested. 


Deming has never hesitated to go as far as a white man dared to 
go to see unsullied primitive life laid bare, but where he has com- 
promised the “artistic license” has been quite well justified and is 
not a basic fault. 


In the Animal Life invariably associated with the Indian, the 
bear, wolf, coyote, crow, eagle, rattlesnake, or any one of the host 
of wild creatures of mountain or plain, Deming has found worthy 
subjects for paint or clay. His small bronzes are unusually fine in 
execution and faithful in his animal characteristics, and he has 
embodied in them the sentiment of the Indian in a manner so 
beautiful as to lift them to a very high plane of artistic achieve- 
ment. 





AMERICAN Press ASSOCIATION 

Where artists are not confined to portraying actual events and 
are free to indulge their love for native subjects and their fondness 
for decorative effects at one and the same time, the results are 
often most pleasing. The work of Edwin Willard Deming illus- 
trates this idea. He is a lover of the life of the plains, with all its 
freedom and absence of artificial restraint and his paintings and 
sculpture evince this fact. He is at home with either the modeler’s 
tools or the palette and brush, has lived among the Indians, has 
studied the habits of the wild animals, and believes that with such 
a wealth of native material as we possess in this country, there is 
little occasion to go abroad for subjects or to produce classic 
imitations. 


In the Red Man’s folklore and in the tales of the warpath and 
the hunt which he has heard recited around the camp fires and in 
the tepi, he has found inspiration for his paintings and sculpture 
that tell us a great deal about the life he has studied. Typical of 
this is a series of library decorations he has recently executed por- 
traying incidents of the life of Hiawatha. They are founded on the 
real traditions of the Red Man about the life and teachings of this 


a) 


SONOS UVM JAL 





personage, stories which the artist himself has heard the aborigines 
recite. In a painting entitled “Defiance” and in a series of panels 
illustrating “Old Time Life on the Plains,’ shown -at a recent 
exhibition, the artist has also made valuable contributions to the 
record of native history and customs and phases of life that are 
destined to pass from the scene very soon. 


Tue Wortp. July 11, 1909. 


The following article on Deming was written especially for this 
newspaper by Commendetore Ettore Ximenes, the famous Italian 
sculpture and art critic, who in his capacity as Director of Fine 
Arts in the Italian Department of Education is now in America 
studying our Art Schools and Museums. 

Extract. 


As a matter of fact in Deming’s studio are canvases that might 
have been painted by Velasquez, others by Fra Angelico, others by 
Van Dyke, and others by Botticelli. Between the “Medicine Man” 
and the “Morning Star” breaking through the mist, there lies an 
abyss. So the “Laments of the Widowed Brave” and the “Vow of 
Vengeance”’ in no way resemble the “Departure for War” and the 
“Return in Triumph.” “The Prayer to the Sun”’ is different from 
“The Indian Lovers.” ‘The War Dance’”’ is unlike ‘““The Appeal 
to the Great Mystery.” “The Greetings to the New Moon” 1s a 
contrast against the “Spirit of Evil,” and “The Prayer to the Spirit 
of the Dead Animal” is totally different from everything else as is 
“The Arrival of the Puritans in 1620.” 

And I do not speak of the varied impressions produced by some 
of the studies and sketches which are a complete revelation of a 
genius that is mature and replete with poetry. An atmosphere full 
of air and light glows in every one of these productions. His 
transparent and imperceptible horizons convey a sense of infinite 
poetry. The living creature, everything that appears in his land- 
scapes, now rhythmically composed, now a contrast with each other 
in tone and line, all are a hymn to nature, exhaling the perfumes of 
the virgin soil and of flowers interlaced with turf. The stagnant 
water of the dead marshes mirrors the universe; the animal wan- 
dering over the immensity of the prairies, watches and listens in 
silence. If Narcissus does not mirror himself in the limpid water, 
he plays the flute like Orpheus, inspiring men and beasts with love. 


InscrIPTION IN Book BY FREDERICK DELENBAUGH 
Member of the Explorers Club 


To my good friend. E. W. Deming who is so familiar with the old 
Great West, its Indians and its literature, I wish to express my 
admiration for his genius in representing that field in paintings 
that will be priceless in the future. 

FREDERICK S. DELENBAUGH. 
New York, January 12, 1923. 
: ey 


THE CRAFTSMAN, IQII 
By Mary Fanton Roberts 


An interesting, recent exhibition presented the paintings and 
bronzes of Mr. E. W. Deming. We have often spoken of Mr. 
Deming’s work in the Craftsman, and have felt the profoundest 
admiration and the closest sympathy for the quality of his art. He 
is a student of Indian life; a careful, conscientious observer, a 
sincere reporter of the ways of their history and picturesque 
qualities. And with all these practical details as the foundation for 
his art, he has also the quality of imagination which is stimulating 
toward this one romantic race in America. Mr. Deming feels the 
legends and traditions and customs of the Indian as this vanishing 
race itself has felt them. In a poetical mural decoration for Mrs. 
C. C. Rumsey he has painted the spirit of the water. At a first 
glimpse there is only the sense of the warm mist over the pearly 
blue lake, and then slowly creeping from the mist, as mythological 
figures are forever creeping from the mist of tradition, is the wistful 
outline of the water goddess—pale, fragile, etherealized. In all his 
Indian work, whether his figures are in the war dances, at prayer at 
sunrise, or placating the gods of the underworld, Mr. Deming is 
seeing and painting as one having a vision of the fundamental 
truths which were religion to these people. And one feels in his 
painting of nature the same subtle understanding of her spiritual 
moods that he portrays when he presents the little known and 
beautiful mysteries of the Indian religion. 


Perhaps no one has ever more exquisitely revealed the first blush 
of dawn, the mystery of moonlight, the changing gray of twilight, 
the tragic depths of loneliness in the first daybreak in woods and 
prairies. It does not matter in these essentially poetical delinea- 
tions of nature whether the figures which relate them to life are the 
old tribes which have so long inhabited the western edge of the 
continent, or the animals which are now almost extinct. Each 
living thing in the scope of Mr. Deming’s art is bathed in his rare 
and subtle power of relating life to nature and encompassing both 
with the mystical charm which nature gives in her strange silent 
moments. 


At this exhibition of Mr. Deming’s there are several studies for 
the Harriman decorations which Mr. Deming has just completed. 
These are painted in a very high key, perhaps higher than one 
would feel in the actual instance and surroundings of the Indian 
life. And yet the tone does not so much seem to render over- 
poetical the delineation as to suggest a certain subphase of life 
which was inherent in Indian character, and which might have 
escaped in the more blatant tones of harsh contrasts which are 
often so possible to find in the West. In any case, Mr. Deming 


38 


has chosen the lighter key for all his recent Indian decorations, and 
these decorations seem to grow more and more to express the 
mystical side of the Indian life. One cannot but feel that this 
artist has chosen wisely in selecting the tones which have for him 
unquestionably the value of symbolism. 


Happily in the Indians which Mr. Deming has so faithfully 
loved and has so faithfully portrayed, he takes no cognizance of 
their existence as a modern disorganized race. He tells us only 
of the Indian as a free spirit; of the men who led their lives accord- 
ing to their own impulse and religion. And he shows us as a result 
of this freedom, beauty of physique, sincerity of religious attain- 
ment and standards of right social intercourse. The Indians as 
we see them today are but one little edge of a civilization to which 
they do not belong, and from which they will eventually drop away, 
except as they grow weak enough to become absorbed. In any 
case, they have no significance either to historian or artist. Whereas 
the race from which they descended, the once rulers of the con- 
tinent, were men of joy and spiritual contentment, of personal 
dignity and beauty, and of wise simplicity of existence. These are 
the things Mr. Deming is recording from day to day, recording with 
sincerity and artistic significance, in his mural decorations, his 
easel pictures and his bronzes. 





CHRISTIAN ScriENCE MoniIror 
Article by Robert Macbeth 


Few of our painters are as familiar with the great outdoors of our 
Western country and with the wild life that characterizes it as E. 
W. Deming. His paintings are what might be expected from a man 
so sure of his subjects, with the technical knowledge that admirably 
permits him to secure his effects. They are spread over a wide 
range of years and subjects, but in each Mr. Deming has a mes- 
sage for us, from the big “Spirit of Famine,” a truly terrible con- 
ception, to the delightful little sketches of scenes in the northern 
forests. 


The bronzes, too, are excellent for they reveal a man that is 
equally at home in two mediums. Here most of his subjects are the 
wild animals he has known: the bear, bison, antelope and mountain 
sheep; but his Indian masks are finely modeled and lend a dis- 
tinguished note to his collection. 


39 


aANINV] 


JO LIWIdS FH] 





40 





t THe Ficutr 
Bronze BEAR AND PANTHER 


Metropolitan Museum of Art. 


41 





THe Movurninc BRAVE 


National Museum, Washington, D. C. 


THE New York TIMES 


An intimate knowledge of the American Indian is spread in an 
article in the American Museum Journal by E. W. Deming, and 
it might be said that Mr. Deming speaks with the heart and voice 
of the Indian because he has lived among them as an adopted son. 
Mr. Deming admires them, feeling he knows their generosity and 
their wrongs as they know them. He believes in their good faith 
and honor, and much that is magnificent in them that has never 
been recorded; among other things, their deep poetic and religious 
sentiment. 





Tae NEw. ORK POST 


If it were safe or fair, and no doubt it is neither, to deal in a pic- 
turesque fashion with those who deal with the picturesque, one 
might say that Mr. Remington has seen the story of the hard- 
pressed native along the sights of a rifle, and Mr. Deming wrapped 
in one of their own blankets. He has, at any rate, taken the view- 
point of the Indian himself as far as that is possible. From season 
to season he has lived with one tribe or another and has even been 
admitted to honorary membership, privileged in the confidence of 
the chiefs and chiefs’ sons, intimate with all, speaking their lan- 
guage, leading their life, and sharing to some extent their thoughts. 
He seeks to depict it truthfully and intimately. 

An effort at interpretation of this sort has its difficulties. Es- 
pecially when it reaches the point of embodying religious beliefs 
and myths, the quality of the native imagination may show up 
rather theatrically in the translation. 


THe New York HERALD 


Probably no painter in this city has drawn his inspiration so 
thoroughly from the well of primitive folklore as has Mr. Deming, 
and his work reveals a poetic appreciation of the life which he 
knows through association with the red men. 


43 





Manasoza, SCULPTURE 


44 


THe New York Sun 


Mr. Deming has lived among the Indians and traveled thousands 
of miles with or among them, both in the south and the north, 
before they had lost their old time ways of life, when it was still 
possible to learn directly the genius of their people, to gain an 
ethical understanding of their race. They made him their friend 
and had confidence in him. It even seems, sometimes, in his own 
personality that he early became so imbued with their taciturn 
spirit that he unconsciously suggests the reserve that characterizes 
the red man, leaving him thoughtful, with time to cultivate his 
powers of observation. Mr. Deming wastes no more words than 
does the Indian, and in his painting he does not resort to fictitious 
accessories. 

In the bronzes, too, Mr. Deming sticks to the wilder life for the 
most part. Here is a noble buffalo, carefully studied, a Rocky 
Mountain sheep, a she-bear with a turtle, each discovering the 
other by mutual surprise. 





Tue Eveninc Malt. 


Edwin Willard Deming knows the Indians and their life very 
well, and depicts them sympathetically. His exhibition of paint- 
ings and sculpture contain several excellent Indian paintings. 

The best, perhaps, is the “Spirit of Famine,” though the sym- 
bolism of this picture is not strictly in accordance with Indian 
notions. Indians do not conceive a spirit to represent an abstract 
idea, or fact of nature, such as hunger is. They lend a spirit to a 
tree, a rock, and to every species of animal. If they wanted a 
spirit of famine, they would think of the spirit of a wolf. Mr. 
Deming represents the spirit of famine by means of a crouching 
woman, behind and about whom is a band of vague, ghostly 
wolves and about whose head broods a raven. The picture is 
big, deep and dismally beautiful. 

“The Vow of Vengeance” is a fine picture, representing a woman 
whose father or husband has been slain, pledging herself to revenge 
his death in the presence of the medicine men. The group is full 
of power and suggestion. Several other Indian scenes show under- 
standing and force. 


Tue Sunpay Srar, Wasuincton, D. C. 


Edwin Willard Deming, who lectured before the Art and Arch- 
eology League in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, is one of our best 
known American Artists. He is also an illustrator, mural painter 
and sculptor, but he has specialized in depicting the life of the 
American Indians. 


45 


Partita List oF OWNERS 
OF THE BRONZES AND PICTURES 


Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss 
Mr. Larz Anderson 

Mr. Giles Atherton—England 
Judge Leon Armison—Cuba 
Mr. John Berwind 

Dr. Harlow Brooks 

Mrs. Witherbee Black 

Mr. George Bakeland, Jr. 
Mr. Irving Batchelor 

Mrs. Beaman 

Mr. J. C. Carrere 

Dr. C. G. Childs 

Dr. James Coughlan 

Dr. Kennicut Draper 

Mrs. Edward Delafield 
Mr. Edmund Driggs 

Mr. Victor Evans 

Dr. J. Ives Edgerton 

Dr. W. Evans 

Dr. Louis Frissell 

Mr. Frank Richards Ford 
Mr. Daniel Chester French 
Dr. Percy S. Grant 

Mr. Elmer Gregor 

Miss Alice Greenleaf 

Mr. George Heye 

Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
Mrs. E. H. Harriman 

Mr. Louis Hill 

Mr..F. W. Hodge 

Mr. John M. Holzworth 
Mr. Will Irwin 

Miss Annie B. Jennings 
Dr. Walter B. James 





Mr Arthur Curtiss James 
Mrs. Rita D’acosta Lydig 
Mr. Thomas Le Bouttlier 
Mr. Ogden Mills — 

Mrs. Gardner Millett 

Col. Alexander J. Macnab 
Mrs. John Milburn 

Dr. A. Merritt 

Mr. Carl MacFadden 

Mr. Joseph McAleenan 
Mr. J. M. Merriman 

Mr. Robert Macbeth 
Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn 
Mr. A. Perry Osborn 

Mr. Percy Pyne 

Mr. George D. Pratt 
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt 
Mrs. Carl Rumsey 

Mr. Benjamin Riegel 

Mr. Clarence B. Sturges 
Mr. Gustave W. Seiler 
Mrs. Willard Straight 
Mr. Roderick Stephens 
Mr. Michael Spellacy 
Mrs. M. Talbert 

Mr. Frederick K. Vreeland 
Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney 
Mrs. Payne Whitney 
Mrs. Casper Whitney 
Mrs. DeVere Warner 
Miss Esther Waterman 
Mr. Frederick Walcott 








Commendatore Ettore Xemenes 


—Italy 


46 


List or Works IN Pustic INSTITUTIONS. 


Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

American Museum of Natural History. 

National Museum, Washington. 

Heyes Foundation, Museum of the American Indian. 
Montclair Art Gallery. 

Morris High School. 

Explorers Club. 

National Arts Club, N. Y. C. 

Montifiore Home for Crippled Children. 





List or CLuBs. 


Cosmos Club, Washington D. C. 

Explorers Club, Active Member. 

National Arts Club, Artist Life Member. 
Society of Mural Painters. 

Sons of the Revolution, Washington, D. C. 
Yorktown Country Club, Va. Life Member. 
Washington Arts Club. 

Camp Fire Club of America. 

Authors League of America. 


pence Military Engineers, 


Garrison, 194Army & N Uni 
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Army and Navy Club of N.Y 


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